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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393570">The Father, The Brother, and The Unholy Spirit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lennelle/pseuds/Lennelle'>Lennelle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Post-Season/Series 12, Sam Winchester Big Bang 2019, Sam Winchester-centric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:40:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,030</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22393570</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lennelle/pseuds/Lennelle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded and alone, hopping from one strange universe to the next, Sam is left with no choice but to rely on the one person he's always struggled to trust: himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>94</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the Sam Winchester Big Bang.<br/>Thank you to jaredcortese for making such lovely art work and being the chillest partner ever and not yelling at me when I took 84 years to finish writing this.<br/>And thank you Sky for volunteering to beta this literally the night before posting, you're a real one xo</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam has lost count of worlds. He lost Dean somewhere after the fourth, or maybe it was the fifth.</p>
<p>There was one world where humans didn’t exist, North America was an untamed forest, thriving with lush green. Sam had never breathed in air so clear. He didn’t stick around long. He found another rift after fifteen minutes of stumbling through the trees.</p>
<p>On the other side was chaos. Hell had come topside. The city was deserted, weeds peeked out through cracks in the street, glass from windows was smashed and scattered. On the wall, painted in red, was a single word.</p>
<p>
  <em>CROATOAN</em>
</p>
<p>The rift appeared again and Sam didn’t hesitate to jump through.</p>
<p>That was seven worlds ago. Sam thinks he’s stepped into his twentieth now, at least. He comes stumbling through the rift with the breath knocked out of him, his heart is thundering in his chest and his legs ache from running. But he keeps going, runs until he can’t any longer, by which time the last rift is long behind him. He drops down onto a patch of grass, feet numb, lungs wheezing.</p>
<p>His eyes are bleary and he blinks away wetness from the rain that had soaked him an entire world away. He forces himself to lift his head, just to check the rift has closed, that whatever was wanting to strip the meat from his bones hasn’t followed him here.</p>
<p>It’s gone. Sam finally lets himself relax and droop heavily into the grass. He’s on some suburban street, one that you might see on a photo in the window of a real estate agent. Lush green lawns, blue shutters, even white picket fences.</p>
<p>It looks so normal and for a moment Sam wonders if he finally made it back home.</p>
<p>“Sam?” someone calls from behind. A woman’s voice. “Sam!”</p>
<p>He can hear soft footsteps hurrying closer and Sam forces himself upright with a groan.</p>
<p>“Sam, what happened?” the woman asks, and she sounds worried. She’s right next to him now, leaning in close, fingers touching his face. Sam is dizzy and he wants to tell her to back off, but when he looks up at her face he stops breathing.</p>
<p>She’s still beautiful, probably more beautiful than she was when she was twenty-one. Her hair isn’t long anymore, now cropped to her shoulders. It suits her.</p>
<p>“Sam? Talk to me, baby.”</p>
<p>Sam tries but finds himself incapable of stringing a sentence together. All he can manage is, “Jess.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?” She replies, but Sam doesn’t have anything more to say. He reaches up and his fingertips meet her cheek. Her skin is soft, her eyes have the beginnings of crow’s feet, but they’re still the same beautiful sky blue. She frowns as she says, “Let’s get you inside, okay?”</p>
<p>Sam lets her pull him to his feet and into the house attached to the lawn he’d been lying on. Inside is a big open home with cluttered bookshelves, a vase of flowers on nearly every surface and unopened mail stacking up on the coffee table. It looks so normal, a lot like the home he dreamed of as a kid. He knows this isn’t right, that he should look for another rift, but Jess’ hand is so soft and gentle on his shoulder. He can’t stop looking at her.</p>
<p>He’s pushed gently to sit on a grey couch with an assortment of blue pillows. Through an archway there’s a kitchen and two kids sitting at a table, staring at him. One is in a highchair, food mushed around her tiny mouth, the other sits with his feet dangling way above the ground, a dinosaur on his t-shirt.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong with Dad?” the kid asks Jess.</p>
<p>“Daddy’s not feeling well,” Jess tells him. “You finished with your lunch?”</p>
<p>The kid nods, not taking his eyes off Sam.</p>
<p>“Well, go on upstairs then,” Jess says, waving towards the staircase behind her.</p>
<p>The kid slips out of his seat hesitantly, making a wide berth around Sam as he tiptoes towards the stairs. Once there, he barrels up them without looking back.</p>
<p>Jess shakes her head and lifts the toddler from the highchair, expertly pulling a cloth from seemingly nowhere to wipe the kid’s messy face. She bounces the child on her hip all the way into the living room, then sits in the armchair beside Sam. Sam stares at the little girl, he sees the flowers on her soft cotton t-shirt now, where she’s perched on Jess’ knee.</p>
<p>This kid stares back at Sam with the same expression as the other on, completely bewildered, maybe even a little scared.</p>
<p>“Sam?” Jess says softly, pulling his attention back. “What happened? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”</p>
<p>She staring at him with her eyebrows raised, waiting for an answer.</p>
<p>“Um,” Sam begins, searching for a lie. “I was at work, but I – I came home early.”</p>
<p>Jess’ brows droops and pinch together sympathetically. “You feeling sick?”</p>
<p>Sam nods. “I – I think so….”</p>
<p>He glances around the room. It’s a nice house, bright and spacious. It looks like it was neatly decorated once in whites and blues and greens, but it’s now cluttered with children’s toys. There’s a Lego set scattered across the coffee table next to the mail stack.</p>
<p>“I told him to tidy that up this morning and he <em>still </em>hasn’t done it,” Jess says, catching Sam’s gaze. She smiles as she says, “But what else is new?”</p>
<p>The little girl on her lap gurgles and kicks her stubby little legs. She has Sam’s eyes, but the plump lips and curly blond hair is all Jess. Sam knew as soon as he saw the kids, but it only really dawns on him now that these tiny people are made of half of him.</p>
<p>“Can I hold her?” he asks. He’d be lying if he said he’d never wanted kids. It was part of the plan with Jess, before she died, and once she was gone his dreams of that future burned up with her. Here she is now, plus two children.</p>
<p>Jess freezes for half a second and she stares at him like he’s got a tail. He wonders if she knows he’s not her Sam.</p>
<p>“Of course you can…” she says. “Baby, did you hit your head or something? You’re acting strange.”</p>
<p> “I think I’m coming down with something,” Sam lies, although he is feeling like he might throw up any second. “A fever, maybe.”</p>
<p>“Well, in that case, Mary isn’t going anywhere near you. I don’t want her catching whatever you have.”</p>
<p>“She’s called Mary?”</p>
<p>Jess blinks at him. “Okay, Sam, you’re starting to freak me out now. I’m going to put her down for a nap, then I’m calling your doctor.”</p>
<p>“No!” Sam snaps, jumping to his feet just as she does. She takes a small step back, holding the baby close. Sam forces a smile. “No, I mean, don’t call the doctor yet. I think I just need some sleep.”</p>
<p>Jess relaxes a little. “Right. You have been working ridiculous hours.” She stands on her tip-toes to peck his cheek and Sam’s heart aches at the memory of her doing that hundreds of times before when they were at college. Her face turns suddenly serious, and it’s the same as her studying face, the one she wore when she did schoolwork in their tiny Stanford living room as she pretended not to watch the reality shows she put on TV for ‘background noise’.</p>
<p>“Get some rest, but if you still feel weird when you wake up I’m calling the doctor,” she says, no nonsense. She never talked like that before, must be something she picked up after having kids. He watches her walk away and up the stairs, speaking softly to Mary, making dumb baby faces at her. She’s so beautiful that it makes Sam ache.</p>
<p>This isn’t real, he reminds himself. But that isn’t the problem, the problem is that all of this is very much real, it just doesn’t belong to him. This life belongs to another Sam, who’s probably sitting in a law firm right now, completely oblivious to the intruder in his home.</p>
<p>Of all the worlds Sam has visited - the empty ones and the bloody ones, the one’s where everyone he knows is gone and the ones where hell has come to the surface - this world is the worst of them all.</p>
<p>He has to leave. He has to find wherever a new rift has opened and carry on hopping through worlds until he gets back home. Most importantly, he has to find Dean. Sam tries to step carefully, wincing when the floorboards creak beneath his feet. He can hear Jess upstairs talking to someone.</p>
<p>He leans close to the bannister to listen.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” she says. “He was just lying in the front yard. He’s wearing clothes I’ve never seen before, it’s weird… No, nothing like that… Sam doesn’t drink much, but he seems a little out of it… He said he came home from work early because he felt sick but the car’s not in the driveway so I think maybe he walked all the way from town… Dr. Gibson, I’m really worried. He seems confused, I don’t think he knew our daughter’s name…”</p>
<p>Sam steps away towards the door. He’s learned to be quiet from a lifetime of hunting monsters, but he’s never been particularly lucky.</p>
<p>“Where are you going?” a small voice whispers from the top of the stairs.</p>
<p>Sam turns to find the little boy descending each step slowly, shoulders stiff, eyes hesitant.</p>
<p>“Uh, I just have to go out somewhere,” Sam whispers.</p>
<p>“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” the kid says. Something about the boy reminds him of Dean. He looks a lot like Sam did at eight years old with his floppy brown hair and wide hazel eyes, but the attitude is all Dean, arms crossed over his chest and everything.</p>
<p>“Not forever, I’ll be back later,” Sam says, and it isn’t exactly a lie. Sam will be back later, it just won’t be him.</p>
<p>“You’re not my dad,” the boy says. There’s no suspicion, just simple facts.</p>
<p>Sam doesn’t know what to say. He’s frozen, eyes darting to the top of the stairs where Jess could appear any second.</p>
<p>“My dad doesn’t have a scar here,” the kid points to his neck.</p>
<p>Sam’s fingers find the knotted flesh. A two-year-old gash from a wendigo’s claws, one Cas never got around to fixing properly.</p>
<p>“And you look different,” the kid continues, cocking his head to the side. “You have the same face, but my dad’s face is happier than yours.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Sam replies, mostly to himself. This kid’s dad was never an addict, he never started the apocalypse, he never went to hell.</p>
<p>“Are you an alien or something?” the boy asks, remarkably unfazed by the idea.</p>
<p>Sam suppresses a laugh. “No, I’m not an alien. I’m just… “ From where? An alternate dimension? “… I’m from somewhere else. Far away.”</p>
<p>“Sounds like an alien to me.”</p>
<p>Sam shrugs. In a way, the boy is right. He’s foreigner here. “Look, kid,” he says. “I have to go back to where I came from. Your dad will be back home later and everything will be normal again, okay?”</p>
<p>“I guess.”</p>
<p>Upstairs, Jess calls, “Dean?”</p>
<p>“I’m downstairs, Mom!” the boy calls back. To Sam, he says, “You better get back to your spaceship before she catches you.”</p>
<p>But it’s too late, she’s already coming down the stairs. She pauses midway and stares at Sam by the front door.</p>
<p>“Are you going somewhere?” she asks, descending down the remaining steps. She stops next to the boy – Dean, his name is <em>Dean</em> – and brushes her fingers through his hair, to which Dean makes a sour face.</p>
<p>“Thought I’d get some fresh air,” Sam hedges.</p>
<p>“Okay…” Jess says, and it’s clear she doesn’t believe him. She’s probably half a second away from calling 911. “Dean-o, go pick out a book and I’ll be up in a minute to read to you, okay?”</p>
<p>The kid casts Sam a wary glance before scurrying away up the stairs. Jess descends one step at a time, hand on the railing, eyes locked on Sam. Once little Dean is out of earshot and she’s standing on the third step, eye-to eye with Sam, she says, “Tell me what’s going on. Now.”</p>
<p>Sam pulls in a shaky breath. Lying to her was one of the hardest things he ever had to do, and he wishes most days he could go back and tell her the truth from the beginning. How might things have been, he wonders, if she’d known what he knows? Would she have died? Would she have still loved him? He wants to tell her now, his heart pounds in his chest so hard it threatens to leap out.</p>
<p>But this Jess isn’t his. And he’s not her Sam. This Jess gets to be happy and safe.</p>
<p>“I can’t explain,” Sam says. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. I need to go out for a little while, okay? I’ll be back later and it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”</p>
<p>“Sam – “</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Sam finishes. He finds his fingers a touch away from hers and he allows himself to slide them together. Her hands were always so cold, no matter how hot it was. He feels her cool hand in his and smiles.</p>
<p>He turns away and walks out the front door, careful to close it gently so as not to wake the baby upstairs, and tries his hardest not to look back. When she calls after him, it takes everything he has not to run back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Not much is different about this world, Sam discovers. They voted for the wrong president and wage war in the Middle East, he finds this in a newspaper. People are equally obsessed with their phones as they were back in his universe, he learns this after knocking into several people walking down the street.</p>
<p>But these aren’t the things he needs to find. What he needs is a single tear in space. He’s hopped through enough universes to sense when he’s near one – a strange, tugging feeling in his middle, eager to swallow him up. There’s nothing here but bustling cafes and fumes from countless cars zooming by.</p>
<p>If he’s lucky, the next universe won’t spit him out on his dead girlfriend’s doorstep.</p>
<p>He wonders how many rifts he’ll have to jump through before he gets back home. How many until he finds his brother again. Far away, in one of God’s other sandboxes, Cas is probably pacing a dent in the floor of the bunker library, trying to figure out how to bring them back.</p>
<p>Sam pauses outside a hair salon, catching sight of a clock through the window. He turns the hands on his watch to match the time. Half an hour ago, in another universe, it was the middle of the night. Sam rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. Last time he slept; he was in his own bed in his own universe. That could have been days ago.</p>
<p>He finds the nearest motel and hopes the dollars in his back pocket can be used in this universe, too. He ends up spending more than he would usually on a single room for the night and crashes straight into bed, too tired to take off his shoes or climb under the covers. He wakes up to a crescent moon hanging outside his window. He glances to his side to check if Dean’s awake, but, of course, there’s no-one else in the room. He sighs and drops back into the pillow.</p>
<p>He wonders where his brother is right at this moment, but quickly shuts down the thought when his mind turns back to a world on fire, another one with Sam, black-eyed and grinning.</p>
<p>“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” that Sam had said.</p>
<p>Sam rolls onto his side and tries his best to fall back to sleep. He does, eventually, but he dreams of bones crunching under his feet.</p>
<hr/>
<p>He wakes when the sun comes peeking over the rooftops across the street, bathing the motel room in red. Sam rolls over to nudge Dean awake but his hand reaches out and catching only air. Sam remembers, then, where he is. Where Dean <em>isn’t.</em></p>
<p>Sam lies on his back, stares up at a crack in the ceiling. How many more worlds will he have to run through to get home? Will he ever get home at all? Will he ever see his brother again? Sam stays there for another few minutes before deciding he should hop into the shower and wash the stink of apocalyptic worlds off his skin.</p>
<p>He feels marginally better once he’s clean and dry, but grimaces when he has to flip his boxers inside out and re-dress himself in clothes that stink of smoke, sulphur and blood. Maybe he could find a laundromat… but clean clothes aren’t a priority. He needs to find the rift, the one that has inevitably slashed itself somewhere in the wall of this universe.</p>
<p>Maybe Dean will be on the other side. Or maybe there’ll be more painful memories waiting to peel him off the sidewalk.</p>
<p>Jessica is out there right now. Probably spooning mashed banana into a baby girl’s mouth, kissing her Sam on the cheek as he hurries out the front door to work. It’s comforting, in a way, that one Jess got her happy ending.</p>
<p>Sam tries not to think of dead girlfriends and crushed dreams as he hotwires a pick-up that’s been sitting around the back of the motel since the night before. It’s gathering dust on the windows and rust on the rims so he figures no one will miss it too much.</p>
<p>Where do you even begin to look for a door to another universe? Up until now, Sam had mostly stumbled his way to where he is now, practically falling into another world like he’s Alice in freakin’ Wonderland. He could use a white rabbit to chase right about now.</p>
<p>All he has is this faint pull in his gut, this feeling of things not being quite right. He suspects this universe knows he doesn’t belong here and is as eager to spit him back out as he is to leave. Problem is, the tug in his belly doesn’t have a great sense of direction, mostly swooping and diving like a cart on a rollercoaster.</p>
<p>Where the hell do you even begin to look? The last times had been so much simpler, despite running for his life. The rifts before hadn’t been far away, waiting to swallow him up. Sam pulls his stolen truck up onto the side of the road. There’s not much around but corn fields, the crops stretched up high to touch the clear blue sky. He sits there, hands curled around the steering wheel, the engine rumbling gently through the cabin. <em>What if this is it?</em> Sam wonders. <em>What if there is nowhere else to go?</em></p>
<p>But that would mean he’d never see his brother again and, frankly, that’s unacceptable. Sam makes a U-turn and heads back towards town.</p>
<hr/>
<p>He realises he’s being followed in the early evening of his second day in this universe. He aims for discreet; no doubt there are plenty of folks in this town who’ll mistake him for a different Sam, so he pockets a baseball cap from a grocery store and keeps his head ducked beneath its rim as he uses the last of the cash in his pockets to buy some supplies. Food, a pocket knife and a box of salt will have to do. He notices someone in his shadow as he’s leaving the store. They duck behind a pyramid of tinned soup just as he’s out the door, and once Sam is on the road in his borrowed truck, he notices a Prius creeping along behind him all the way back to his motel.</p>
<p>Whoever it is, they’re an amateur.</p>
<p>Sam tips his cap lower over his face and pockets his swiss army knife before climbing out of the truck. He walks past his motel room and around the back of the building into the alley. It’s a dead end, somewhere nice and quiet to confront his stalker. Sam knows who it is before something hard is pressed to the small of his back. A knife? Doubtful. Probably something mundane masquerading as a weapon in the hope of scaring Sam.</p>
<p>“Don’t move,” the man behind him warns. Sam raises one hand, his other arm occupied with his grocery back.</p>
<p>“I know you were at my house,” the man continues, “with my family. You tell me who you are and what you want. Now!”</p>
<p>“I don’t want anything from you or your family,” Sam says. “Just take a step back, alright? I don’t want to hurt you.”</p>
<p>“I will shoot!” the man threatens.</p>
<p>Sam rolls his eyes, lets his grocery back drop to his feet before spinning swiftly around, his arm coming up to knock the other man’s hand away. A cell phone goes flying, hitting the brick wall with a shatter.</p>
<p>“You don’t even have a gun,” Sam says. “And I bet you wouldn’t even know how to use one. What was your plan here, huh? What were you going to do?”</p>
<p>Sam takes off his hat and combs his fingers through his hair. The other man – the other <em>Sam</em> – stumbles back, trips on a trash bag and lands on his ass. His eyes are comically wide as he scrambles back to his feet.</p>
<p>“What the – “ he breathes. His sentence comes to a sudden halt and his mouth hangs open. He’s propped up against the wall, clinging to it like it’s the only real thing there is.</p>
<p>“Look, man, I’m not going to hurt you,” Sam promises, holding up his hands in an attempt to look as harmless as possible. “Just… breathe, okay?”</p>
<p>The other Sam pulls in a stuttering breath and slowly straightens himself out. It’s like looking in a funhouse mirror, only instead of a twisted version of himself there’s this mundane, suburban version staring back instead. The other Sam is wearing a suit, his blue tie has come loose at his throat, his collar popped open. Almost everything is identical, from the way his left ear leans slightly outward to the mole beside his nose, but this other Sam has a his hair combed neatly behind his ears, an olive tan to his skin and a softer belly.</p>
<p> “Who the hell are you?” the other Sam demands.</p>
<p>“I’m you,” Sam says.</p>
<p>“No…” he mutters. “No. This doesn’t make any sense. I’ve got to be having a, a psychotic break or something!”</p>
<p>Sam offers a sympathetic smile. He’s seen plenty of civilians go through the stages of realisation; shock, denial, depression, and eventual acceptance, but it’s more than strange to see it on his own face. The other Sam scrubs a hand through his neatly trimmed hair and closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he looks marginally disappointed that Sam is still standing in front of him.</p>
<p>“Okay,” the other Sam begins. “Suppose I’m not losing my mind, how is this possible?”</p>
<p>“Multiple universes,” Sam explains.</p>
<p>“Multiple…” the other Sam whispers, trailing off as his face turns even whiter.</p>
<p>“Yeah. I’m you, but from another universe. I guess you’re me if a few things had gone differently.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Well, I went to Stanford to study law, but I never graduated. I dated Jess, but we never married.”</p>
<p>“Really?” the other Sam asks, perking up a little with curiosity. “What happened?”</p>
<p>“She died.”</p>
<p>“Oh… oh, God.” The other Sam droops slightly against the brick wall of the alley. He rubs his wedding ring with his other hand and stares off vacantly. “How?”</p>
<p>“A fire,” Sam tells him. He figures the poor guy couldn’t handle more than the trimmed-down version of the truth.</p>
<p>“What do you do, then?” other Sam asks. “You’re not a lawyer, you’re not married to Jess…”</p>
<p>“I hunt. With my brother.”</p>
<p>“Dean?” There, the slightest crack in his voice. Sam knows straight away; he doesn’t even need to ask.</p>
<p>“Your Dean died.”</p>
<p>Other Sam nods, lips pressed together. “A car accident. A truck came out of nowhere and totalled his car. He was in a coma for a while, but eventually he just… slipped away.” He glances up at Sam. “Your Dean, is he happy?”</p>
<p>Sam swallows. If only the other Sam knew just how complex of a question that is. “I hope so,” Sam answers, as truthful as he can be. “We were stuck, hopping from one universe to the next. I lost him a way back. I just walked through the rift and it closed behind me, left Dean on the other side.”</p>
<p>“This is…” other Sam breathes. “Insane. <em>I’m </em>insane. That’s the only logical explanation.”</p>
<p>“Or,” Sam offers, “Maybe there’s more out there than your own logic.”</p>
<p>Other Sam’s mouth has been hanging open for the past few minutes, and Sam isn’t entirely sure if he’s blinked, either. He shuffles forward a step, simply to test how the other Sam will react. After a moment without flinching or fists flying into faces, Sam places his hand on the other Sam’s shoulder.</p>
<p>“Look, uh, Sam,” Sam says. “You don’t have to get sucked into this. Go home, kiss your wife, tuck your kids into bed, and forget any of this ever happened. I’ll probably find another rift soon, then I’ll be out of this world and out of your hair.”</p>
<p>The other Sam shakes his head. “How can I forget?” he asks, and he finally looks Sam in the eyes. “I can’t just walk away from this.”</p>
<p>“You can,” Sam insists. “Just put one foot in front of the other. Go back to your normal life.”</p>
<p>“But if there are all these other worlds, and all these other “me”s… my life was never really normal to begin with, was it? It’s just one footnote in a much bigger book. Right?”</p>
<p>Is he really this irritatingly persistent? Sam stares at a face almost identical to his, but somehow the man standing in front of him looks so much younger. And, really, that’s the truth of it. This man hasn’t lived the life Sam has, he hasn’t died, or been resurrected, he hasn’t spent almost two hundred years in hell. All this Sam has to worry about it his mortgage and getting his kids into the good school in town.</p>
<p>Sam won’t be responsible for dragging him into this mess.</p>
<p>“Just go home,” Sam says. “I’ll be gone by tomorrow, anyway.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t wait for an answer, simply picks up his grocery bag and takes the short walk back to his motel room. He’s barely placed his bag and room key on the table in the kitchenette before there’s an insistent knock on the door. Sam doesn’t even have to glance through the peep hole to figure out who’s waiting on the other side.</p>
<p>“Tell me to forget about all this as much as you want,” other Sam says, stepping into the room as soon as the door is open, “but I’m not going anywhere.”</p>
<p>He sits down at the edge of the bed and folds his arms over his chest as if he’s a goddamn owl perched on a tree branch, watching and waiting. Sam pushes the door closed and pulls up a chair so the two of them are sitting face-to-face.</p>
<p>“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Sam says. “People around me…” – Jess, Jo, Ellen, Dad, Mom, Andy, Magda, Bobby, Frank, Eileen – “it’s not safe.”</p>
<p>“Look,” other Sam says, “I don’t know what your life is like, but clearly this whole time-hopping, interdimensional travel isn’t too weird for you, but it is for me. I mean, I’m kind of trying to keep it together right now and it would really help me if I could just <em>try </em>to understand what the hell is going on.”</p>
<p>“I don’t really know how to explain it any more than I already have,” Sam admits. “And by the way, time-hopping doesn’t have anything to do with this.”</p>
<p>“When did Jess die?” other Sam asks, and the sudden change of subject nearly gives Sam whiplash.</p>
<p>“About ten years ago.”</p>
<p>“Did you love her?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Did you want to marry her?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Other Sam offers him a gentle smile and says, “Then you know why I have to get involved. You seem afraid. I just want to keep my family safe from whatever’s scaring you so much.”</p>
<p>“I’m not scared,” Sam says.</p>
<p>“You’re talking to yourself here, man. I might not know much about you, but I do <em>know </em>you. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”</p>
<p>Sam shakes his head. “It’s nothing. Just… these past few days have been a little crazy. Your family is safe, I promise.”</p>
<p>Other Sam’s lips press together and Sam knows he’s thinking about saying something, but the two of them remain silent for a little while, just staring at one another. Sam’s trying to get over the image of himself as a father while other Sam is probably trying to spot a glitch in the matrix.</p>
<p>“Mom and Dad,” other Sam finally says. “I mean, your mom and dad, are they alive?”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>“So all you have is Dean?”</p>
<p>Sam shrugs. “We have a couple of friends but, yeah, for the most part it’s just the two of us. Mom died when I was a baby and Dad died about twenty years or so later. Uh, are they… still alive here?”</p>
<p>“Just Mom,” other Sam says. “Dad had a heart attack a few years after Dean died. She still lives in the old house in Lawrence. Remarried a year ago, actually.”</p>
<p>“Really? Wow. Is she happy?”</p>
<p>“I reckon so.”</p>
<p>“Good. That’s good.”</p>
<p>Other Sam nods in agreement, but his eyes wander around the motel room, tracing the cracks in the ceiling and the water stain creeping out from under the sink. Without a word, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. Sam notices a photograph of Jessica sitting on a park bench, beaming up at the camera with a baby balanced on one knee and a toddler on the other. Other Sam pulls out a few bucks and holds them out for Sam to take.</p>
<p>“No, you don’t have to,” Sam says.</p>
<p>“You’re stuck in another universe, staying in the crappiest motel in town,” other Sam points out. “The least I can do is help you out a little. You know, just until you find your way back home.”</p>
<p>“Seriously,” Sam urges. “It’s okay.”</p>
<p>Other Sam grabs his hand and shoves about one hundred bucks into his palm. “Just think of it as me practicing self-care,” he says.</p>
<p>He says goodbye to the other Sam, watches him drive his people carrier out of the parking lot and out of sight. He looks down at the hundred bucks in his hand. This other Sam, the Sam that could have been, is taking to the whole doppelgänger situation rather well. Or so Sam thinks.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam drives home, his tie pulled loose from his neck, sweat beading on his forehead. He thinks over the past hour or so, meeting another him – a sad, scarred version of himself – and wonders if any of it happened at all. Once he’s sitting parked in the driveway, he counts the cash in his wallet and sure enough he’s short a hundred bucks.</p>
<p>This is the sort of thing that happens in movies, the movies Dean used to love. Sam is only 90% sure he hasn’t lost his mind, the other ten percent clings onto <em>holyfuckthismakesnosense. </em>He’d come home earlier that evening to a series of stranger occurrences.</p>
<p>When Jess had asked, “are you feeling better?” he’d been confused. When his son had said, “you’re my real daddy, aren’t you?” Sam had been downright creeped out. But when Jim down at the grocery store called and asked if he was ok after their odd interaction at the store that afternoon, Sam began to panic.</p>
<p>He never went to the store that afternoon. His initial thought was that he was victim to an identity thief… a ridiculously talented one who even managed to trick his wife. Whatever had happened, there was no denying someone else had been in <em>his </em>house with <em>his </em>family and that thought scared Sam more than anything.</p>
<p>It took a bit of detective work but this is a small town and tracking down someone who doesn’t quite belong there isn’t too difficult. Especially when you call every motel asking about recent guests and one of the owners says, “Ah yes, Mr Winchester, is everything alright with your room?”</p>
<p>Sam had expected… well, he’s not sure what he expected. He certainly didn’t expect to come face-to-face with himself. Almost identical, although Sam doesn’t have that scar, and his hair isn’t quite that long, and his eyes aren’t quite that tired.</p>
<p>Maybe that’s why Sam ended up handing over the cash. The other Sam, as tough as he seemed, looked so lost. Sam’s mother always taught him to help those less fortunate and perhaps that’s why Sam felt the urge to help the other man, even though his heart was still racing like a horse on a track.</p>
<p>It’s getting late, almost 9pm. He’ll have missed dinner and the kids’ bedtimes and Jess will probably say she doesn’t mind his lateness while huffing to herself as she watches HBO. Sam locks the car and heads inside to find the house dim, the soft glow of the reading lamp coming in from the living room.</p>
<p>Jess glances up from her book and pushes her glasses up onto the top of her head.</p>
<p>“You’re back,” she says.</p>
<p>“Sorry I wasn’t back earlier, I was just finishing something up at the office,” Sam replies, and he feels awful lying but he’s not exactly sure how to explain recent events to her without sounding insane.</p>
<p>“Mhm.” Jess closes her book. She doesn’t believe him, he never was a very good liar, especially to her.</p>
<p>“I just…” Sam tries. “I’ve had an off day. I’m sorry if I freaked you out.”</p>
<p>Jess gets up from the armchair and, to Sam’s surprise, pulls him into a hug. “You can tell me anything, you know that, right?” she says. She leans back, her fingers locked behind his neck as she gazes up at him. “I know it’s a tough time of year for you. I guess I’ve been waiting for this with Dean’s anniversary coming up.”</p>
<p>Oh. Right. Fourteen days and it’ll be five years since Dean died. Since that truck rammed into Dean’s car. If Sam hadn’t been driving, Dean wouldn’t have been in the passenger seat, wouldn’t have taken the brunt of the truck’s impact, wouldn’t have bashed his head in and fallen into a coma, wouldn’t have died.</p>
<p>Sam walked out of it with just a bump to the head and a broken wrist.</p>
<p>His heart suddenly droops out of his ribcage and thuds onto the floor. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess I’ve been thinking about it.”</p>
<p>Jess pecks him on the cheek. “Just don’t keep all that to yourself, please. Let me be here for you.”</p>
<p>Sam nods. “Yeah. Of course.”</p>
<p>Jess smiles softly and brushes her finger through his hair once. “I’m going to bed. There’s some pasta in the fridge if you’re hungry. I’ll see you upstairs in a bit?”</p>
<p>She gives him one more kiss on the cheek before leaving the room, her footsteps echo quietly as she tip-toes upstairs. Sam sits at the kitchen counter and eats a few forkfuls of microwaved pasta. But he’s not that hungry, and he’s sure he won’t sleep much tonight. He can’t stop thinking about the other Sam.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Sam wakes to a knock on his motel room door. It’s past dawn, the digital clock at his bedside tells him its 7.30am and he’s surprised he slept in so long. He trundles out of bed in nothing but his t-shirt and boxers and peers through the peep hole on the door, having to bend down because of course he’s too damn tall.</p>
<p>The other Sam is waiting on the other side of the door, glancing idly around. He smiles uncomfortably when Sam allows him inside.</p>
<p>“I brought you some coffee,” other Sam says, holding up a paper to-go cup with one hand. Sam takes it gratefully and sips at it, too goddamn tired to care about the scald on his tongue. Sam watches the other guy out of the corner of his eye as he fiddles awkwardly with his tie.</p>
<p>“I called in sick to work,” other Sam says. “I figured this is more important.”</p>
<p>“Work?” Sam queries.</p>
<p>“Oh, uh, I work at a small law firm in the city. Mostly local stuff. Doesn’t exactly rake in the cash but it feels good to help people. You know?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” Sam answers with a smile.</p>
<p>“So,” other Sam says, clapping his hands together. “Where do we start looking for this portal thing?”</p>
<p>Sam stares at him, eyebrows raised. “We?”</p>
<p>“Well, yeah. I told you I’m not walking away from all this.”</p>
<p>“Right,” Sam chuckles. “Fine. I guess it would be helpful to use a car I haven’t stolen.”</p>
<p>Other Sam blanches a bit at that, but chooses not to say anything. Sam grabs his jeans off the back of the chair and redresses, checking and double-checking that Ruby’s knife is still safe and snug in his jacket pocket. He catches the other Sam staring at the pointed tip and symbols carved down the metal.</p>
<p>“Kills demons,” Sam explains. “It’s been pretty useful.”</p>
<p>“Where do you even find a demon killing knife?”</p>
<p>“A girl… well, she was a demon. It’s a long story.”</p>
<p>“Oh… okay. We probably have time –“</p>
<p>“No, really, it’s better you don’t know.”</p>
<p>Other Sam nods awkwardly and leads Sam out to the parking lot where a people carrier waits patiently in the mid-morning sun. They get a few stares from passers-by and Sam wonders what the two of them must look like. Identical twins, or maybe a glitch in the matrix.</p>
<p>They’re quiet once they’re in the car and on the road. Sam watches houses flash by, then trees, fields and cows. He’s watched the world flash by outside the car window almost every day of his life. If he lets his mind, he can hear Dean humming off-tune to <em>Led Zeppelin </em>or <em>Bob Seger</em>, beer bottles clinking together in the cooler in the back.</p>
<p>But other Sam is a silent driver, and there’s two booster seats in the back seat, the fabrics dotted with dinosaurs or butterflies.</p>
<p>“You met Jess at Stanford?” Sam asks.</p>
<p>“Huh? Oh, yeah,” other Sam answers. “Ran into her one day when I was in a hurry, knocked coffee out of her hand so I ditched my class to buy her another. Rest is history.”</p>
<p>He flashes Sam a smile, but it quickly melts away. He clears his throat. “Your Jess,” he says, “Do you think you would have married her?”</p>
<p>“I was shopping for rings,” Sam admits. “I’d narrowed it down to two before… before I lost her.”</p>
<p>Other Sam nods solemnly. “What did you do after?”</p>
<p>“I just ran, really. Hit the road with Dean and never really looked back. For a while, I thought I would go back; finish college, graduate. Never happened.”</p>
<p>“Do you regret it?”</p>
<p>Sam ponders that for a moment. The last decade has been countless deaths and resurrections, an eternity in hell and his sanity unravelled and knotted back together, but it’s also been hundreds of lives still living because of him and Dean.</p>
<p>“No, I don’t think so,” Sam admits, the blurts, “turn left.” The tug in his belly pulling him North.</p>
<p>Other Sam does as he’s told. He almost runs them off the road, the tires screeching in protest at the sharp turn.</p>
<p>“How about you?” Sam asks him. “Is law everything we hoped it would be?”</p>
<p>Other Sam laughs. “Maybe not so glamorous. And the stuff I do isn’t really high paying, but I try to help people if I can. Samuel Winchester, attorney at law,” he parrots. “It still sounds weird to me.”</p>
<p>“Hey, you mind if I call you that?” Sam asks. “Samuel, I mean. It’s just odd to call you Sam.”</p>
<p>“Oh. Sure. I suppose that makes things a little less complicated.”</p>
<p>Sam can’t help laughing, then, and it takes Samuel off guard. It’s infectious, the two of them laugh until their eyes water.</p>
<p>“I don’t think we could make any of this less complicated,” Sam says. “Even for me this is screwed up, and that’s saying something.”</p>
<p>He gulps a lungful of air. He’s never stayed this long in another universe. Usually the next rift would make an appearance and he’d take his chances and hop through. He tries to squash the feeling that something is wrong, follows the pull in his gut and directs Samuel down a gravelled drive out in the middle of nowhere that leads them to a rusted old warehouse.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Sam remembers this place, vaguely. At the time he’d been hazy with exhaustion, nauseous from the constant slipping between worlds. He’d thrown up right there, Sam thinks, although rain has washed it away since. He’d stumbled away, somehow found himself on the other Sam’s lawn. Maybe he’d been drawn there, to the life he never had.</p>
<p>“Holy crap,” Samuel whispers beside him. “That’s it, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>Sam can feel it, like a pulse thrumming down through the concrete to tickle the soles of his feet. A bright, golden rip, slashed through the very fabric that separates two universes.</p>
<p>“You can go home now, right?” other Sam asks. “This is the way back.”</p>
<p>Sam steps forwards, squints against the sun-like vibrancy of the rift. He’s been here before. He came through this rift into this world. “Why is it still here?” Sam wonders.</p>
<p>“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” other Sam says. But it’s not the other Sam, not the guy in the suit, standing dumb-struck beside him. A third Sam wanders casually towards them, a soft, condescending smile on his face.</p>
<p>He blinks and stares at the two of them with onyx black eyes.</p>
<p>Samuel gasps, inching further behind Sam.</p>
<p>“What are you doing here?” Sam asks the demon. The boyking, he thinks, that’s what Pride had called him once. This is who he might have been, in another life.</p>
<p>“You left in such a hurry,” the demon answers. “And, well, when I saw this,” he gestures to the rift, “I had to take a look for myself.” He peers around Sam, observes Samuel amusedly. “And who is this pitiful creature?”</p>
<p>“Just go back to where you came from,” Sam warns, grabbing the hilt of Ruby’s knife inside his jacket.</p>
<p>“Why?” the demon asks. “I think I like it here. Maybe I’ll stay a little while.”</p>
<p>Sam sighs deeply. Why can things never be simple? He flips out his blade. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll just have to kill you, then.” He turns his head to Samuel, not taking his eyes off the demon for one second. “Run. Get in the car and drive. Get your family and get somewhere far away. Don’t stop.”</p>
<p>“But –“</p>
<p>“Go!”</p>
<p>Samuel doesn’t wait to be told again and hurries back the way they came in, his footsteps echoing around the empty warehouse.</p>
<p>“I could snap his neck from here,” the demon says.</p>
<p>“You didn’t.”</p>
<p>“Well, what would the fun be in that?”</p>
<p>Sam stares at the demon in disgust. “Is this really what I would have been?” he asks. “A fucking monster?”</p>
<p>The demon sneers. “A monster? Sure. But a goddamn powerful one. A king.”</p>
<p>“Jesus, try not to trip up on your ego, man.” Sam inches closer, blade raised. The demon doesn’t move, doesn’t so much a twitch.</p>
<p>“Oh, Sam. You can’t kill me. Just like my brother couldn’t kill me. You know what happened when he tried?”</p>
<p>“Shut up.”</p>
<p>“I snapped his neck.”</p>
<p>“I said shut up!”</p>
<p>“You should have heard the <em>crack</em>,” the demon chuckles.</p>
<p>Sam lunges forward without another thought and, surprisingly, the demon doesn’t even try to dodge out of the way. Ruby’s knife sinks into his chest, the metal grating against his ribs. Sam watches sparks like fire stutter under the demon’s skin, but it fizzles out like someone threw water on the flames. The demon grins, his hand shooting out the grab Sam around the neck.</p>
<p>Next thing, Sam is looking down at a twisted version of himself, vision blurring, airways closing. He struggles, tries to pry himself from the demon’s grip, but his fingers are like vices around his neck. Sam watches the demon pull the knife from his chest like his flesh is made of butter.</p>
<p>He tosses it away, the metal clattering against the concrete. With one final squeeze of Sam’s neck, he drops him to the ground in a choking heap.</p>
<p>“You have one minute,” the demon says. “You better start running now.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Samuel, the goddamn idiot that he is, hasn’t run for the hills by the time Sam hurtles out of the warehouse. He’s waiting in the car, engine running, and winds down the window to call out, “Are you alright?!”</p>
<p>“Drive!” Sam shouts, clambering into the passenger seat. Samuel gapes at him, turning to glance back at the warehouse. “I said fucking drive!” Sam yells, and Samuel doesn’t have to be told again. The people carrier zooms back down the road they came in on, gravel under the wheels jolting them every inch of the way.</p>
<p>“What happened?” Samuel finally asks once they’re back on a real road, asphalt, street signs and everything.</p>
<p>“He’s playing a goddamn game with us,” Sam pants, glancing out the rear-view window in case the demon might be right behind them. There are only a few other cars as far as he can see, making their way idly to wherever they want to be.</p>
<p>“You met this, uh, other guy before?” Samuel asks.</p>
<p>“In the last universe. Didn’t stick around long, though. He followed me through the rift,” Sam says. He turns back around, looks Samuel in the eye, “I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p>“Not your fault,” Samuel insists. “Where do we go now?”</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> go home to your family, get them somewhere safe.”</p>
<p>“And leave you to deal with this psycho on your own? What the hell is he anyway?”</p>
<p>“He’s us, if we went down a different path. A path I did go down, actually, but he didn’t stop.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“He’s a demon,” Sam concludes, he doesn’t need to scare Samuel any further by telling the entire grisly story. “I’ve dealt with plenty of demons before, okay? I can handle him. You just need to get your family somewhere safe while I deal with him.”</p>
<p>Samuel lets out a shaky breath and nods, staring out the windshield at the dimming daylight. “Okay,” he says, then spares a quick glance at Sam, “But you promise me you’ll be okay.”</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine,” Sam says. But Sam knows there’s no way he can do this alone. He needs his brother, but only God knows where he is.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Sam recognises the quiet suburban homes with their manicured lawns and tidy porches. Samuel pulls the car into his driveway; the lights are warm and inviting as they shine through the window.</p>
<p>“I need to tell Jess what’s happening,” Samuel says.</p>
<p>“What?” Sam sputters. “No way. It’s better if she doesn’t know.”</p>
<p>Samuel frowns. “I never lie to her,” he says. “And this concerns her as much as it concerns me.”</p>
<p>A decade ago, with another Jess, Sam had built a relationship on lies. And when it had all come crumbling down, Jess charred on the ceiling along with everything else, Sam had wished every day he could have told her, warned her. And here’s Samuel, a Sam-that-could-have-been, who’s more honest than Sam has ever been in his life.</p>
<p>“It’s your choice,” Sam says. “Just… be careful. It’s a lot for a person to take in.”</p>
<p>Samuel snorts. “Oh yeah, I think I’d know. I’m just sitting in my car with my doppelganger, running for our lives from my <em>other </em>doppelganger.”</p>
<p>Sam smiles and Samuel takes a deep breath before taking the keys from the ignition and stepping out of the car. Sam follows him up the path, up the porch steps, and through the front door. He can hear Jess humming cheesy 80s hits to herself in the kitchen, a knife chopping something, water bubbling on the stove.</p>
<p>“Baby, is that you?” she calls as soon as the front door clicks shut.</p>
<p>Samuel glances at Sam. “Uh, yeah. Jess, I need to tell you something.”</p>
<p>“What is it?” Jess calls back.</p>
<p>Two Sams step into the kitchen and a glass bowl of salad meets the floor, scattering glass shards and greenery all across the linoleum.</p>
<p>“Jess,” Samuel says. “I think you met, uh, Sam.”</p>
<p>Jessica’s eyes drift slowly from one to the other. Her eyes are wide, her hands still cupped in front of her as if there’s still a bowl in her grip. “Holy shit,” she whispers.</p>
<p>“I know,” Samuel says. He steps forward and takes one of Jess’s hands in his own, he guides her to one of the kitchen chairs and gently nudges her to sit down. “Are you okay? I should have thought this through a bit more but I don’t really know how you deal with something like this.”</p>
<p>“The other day,” Jess says, glancing back at Sam in the doorway. “That was you, wasn’t it?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Sam admits. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… but I kinda stumbled into your front yard and you saw me and I didn’t really know what to do.”</p>
<p>“So…” Jess pauses to take a deep breath. “How?”</p>
<p>“Multiple universes,” Sam says. Samuel shoots Sam a look as if to say <em>dude!</em> And maybe Sam could have eased her into it a bit more gently, but he’s tired of explaining things he barely understands himself.</p>
<p>Jess stands up and takes a hesitant step forward but glass crunches under her shoe. “I, uh, I should clean this up.” She turns to grab a broom from the cupboard but Sam catches her arm, she stares down at his hand and Sam quickly lets her go.</p>
<p>“I’ll sweep this up,” he insists. “You should talk,” he adds, nodding to Samuel.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The conversation is shorter than Sam expects. He sweeps up the glass, tosses it in the trash and waits patiently for Samuel and Jess to return, which is barely five minutes later.</p>
<p>“So, you think this other guy is coming for us?” she asks Sam.</p>
<p>Sam nods apologetically. He waits for her to yell at him, or crumble, or lose her freaking mind, but all she does is straighten the hem of her blouse, nod to herself and say, “I’ll pack a bag and get the kids into the car, then.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Sam asks. “Just like that?”</p>
<p>“What else am I supposed to do?” Jess wonders.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Sam admits. “I suppose I just thought… I don’t know. You’re taking to all this pretty well.”</p>
<p>Jess shrugs, and Sam notices then that she hasn’t quite looked him in the eye since the truth came out. He can’t blame her, really. He’s the imposter in her house, the stranger wearing her husband’s face. Samuel pats Sam on the shoulder as Jess disappears from the kitchen, her footsteps fading up the stairs.</p>
<p>“What do we do if this guy catches up to us?” Samuel asks.</p>
<p>Sam sighs. “<em>We </em>don’t do anything. You guys get out of town, I’ll take care of him.”</p>
<p>“Take care… you mean – “</p>
<p>“Yes. I’ll kill him, if I can.”</p>
<p>“But you lost the knife, didn’t you?”</p>
<p>“Samuel. Please, just don’t. You lived the life I never had. You never hunted monsters, you never lost people over and over. You got the wife and the kids and the house with the porch. I’m not letting you risk losing that, or them losing you. Stay out of the way.”</p>
<p>Samuel clenches his jaw, nods once and makes to leave the room, but he pauses in the doorway. “Sam, we don’t know each other, not really. And I do have a wonderful life, but don’t treat me like a child. I know what it’s like to lose someone. I know what it’s like to watch someone – “ He pauses, sucks in a breath. “I’ve been helpless to save someone before. Not again.”</p>
<p>Sam wants to say something, but he isn’t sure what there is to say. He’s saved when Jess comes back down the stairs with a toddler passed out in her arms and a sleepy kid dragging his feet behind her.</p>
<p>“Mommy, I want to go back to bed,” little Dean whines. He rubs his fist in his eye and blinks up at his father, then at Sam.</p>
<p>“Dean-o, this is –“ Samuel begins but Dean shrugs and says, “It’s the alien, I know. He’s friendly, right?”</p>
<p>Jess blinks at the kid, throwing questioning looks at both Sams. “Yeah, sure,” she relents, no doubt exhausted by the entire situation already. “Let’s get in the car.”</p>
<p>Once Jess and the kids are out the door and Sam can see her buckling them into their booster seats, Samuel turns to him and says, “You coming with us?”</p>
<p>“No, I think I’ll just put you in more danger. It’s best if we part ways now.”</p>
<p>Samuel’s face drops. “I can’t leave you by yourself.”</p>
<p>“It’s ok,” Sam promises. “I’ll get the other <em>other </em>Sam out of your hair, then I’ll head home. This will all just be a bad dream for you.”</p>
<p>Samuel smiles. “It’s not been all bad. Maybe this sounds narcissistic but I kinda like you, other-me.”</p>
<p>“You’re not terrible yourself,” Sam replies. “You know, for a lawyer.”</p>
<p>Outside, the car horn honks. The lights in the living room flicker, the scent of sulphur filters in and Samuel wrinkles his nose in disgust.</p>
<p>“Jesus, what the-“</p>
<p>“Go, now!”</p>
<p>The kitchen door flies open, the plates set out on the table rattle. A third Sam strides into the room, glancing around at the quartz counters and Ikea lampshades, the scribbles stuck to the fridge and the wedding photo hanging on the wall. Sam stumbles back, turns to tell Samuel to run but Samuel is nowhere to be seen.</p>
<p>Next thing Sam knows, his own knife is slashing towards him. He ducks out of the way just in time, Ruby’s knife strikes the wall and embeds in the wood panelling. Sam doesn’t have time to make a run for it, or try to grab his knife, his back hits the wall with such force it knocks the air out of him.</p>
<p>The demon, in his plaid shirt and jeans, looks as though he could sit down on the couch and flick through the TV channels. He glances up at where Sam is pressed to the wall, a foot off the ground, and his eyes flood oily black. He leans in, almost skin-to-skin with Sam.</p>
<p>“I can smell it on you,” he says, nose pressed close to Sam’s neck. “You’re like me. We have the same blood running through our veins.”</p>
<p>“I’m not like you,” Sam grunts. He squirms against the wall, but he’s pinned in place as securely as a butterfly on a velvet cushion.</p>
<p>“No?” the king chuckles. His teeth are bright white, his smile amused and cruel all at once. “You didn’t like the taste at first. But now? Now, you crave it. I can smell that on you, too, the desperation. Your veins ache for it.”</p>
<p>“Jesus, did you go to villain-monologue school or something?” Sam spits. They’re words Dean would use, and Sam feels a little braver having put them out into the room. “What do you even want here? This isn’t your world. You don’t have power here.”</p>
<p>Two eyes like black holes stare at him, and Sam feels the weight of that black, like slick oil coating his skin. “No, but I will.”</p>
<p>“So, what? You burn your own world and now you want to burn another? Why?”</p>
<p>“Because I can,” the king says, head tilting to the side as if the answer is obvious.</p>
<p>Sam isn’t like this <em>thing</em>. They share the same name, the same face, but the two are nothing alike. He never thought this is how it would end; murdered by another him, in another world, in another Sam’s house.</p>
<p>Sam feels the pull of gravity once more and he meets the hardwood floor with a painful <em>thud</em>. Sam – the other one, the demon king – has stumbled back, hissing and spitting as orange sparks like lightning under his skin, Sam’s own demon blade sticking out of the back of his shoulder. And behind him, hands shaking, another Sam stands in his rumpled suit, eyes wide.</p>
<p>The demon twists and grabs the hilt of the knife. He pulls it free with a growl, blood spatters the clean, cream rug. He snarls, overcome with rage, as he turns to Samuel. Sam’s legs are numb and he drags his body across the hardwood, tries to climb back to his feet but his knees fold beneath him and he lands in a heap once more.</p>
<p>Samuel gasps, the demon’s hand clamped around his neck, his feet kick out as he’s lifted high enough that his head scrapes the ceiling.</p>
<p>“Stop,” Sam pants. “You don’t want him. Kill me, please.”</p>
<p>The demon ignores him. Sam’s just another ant to squash beneath his boot after all. Samuel’s face is turning redder and redder, his eyes bulge. Sam can only hope Jessica took the kids and drove.</p>
<p>“Sam!” she shrieks. She stands in the living room doorway, hands trembling against her lips. Three Sam Winchesters turn to look at her. The demon lets Samuel go, lets him crumble to the floor in a choking heap, knocking the fireplace tools to the ground with a clatter. The demon drops the bloodied knife and Sam watches it skid a little out of his arm’s reach.</p>
<p>“Jess,” the demon says. He tilts his head, observes her with those inky eyes of his. His face softens, if that’s possible.</p>
<p>“Sam,” Jess says again, quietly this time. She glances at her husband, lying still and panting by the fireplace, quickly. It’s barely a flicker of a glance before she’s looking back up at the demon in front of her. “Sam, what happened to you?”</p>
<p>The demon’s lips press together. “What was always meant to happen. This is what I was meant to become. Not this,” he gestures to the other Sams, “not these weak, pathetic things.”</p>
<p>Jess steps a little closer. Sam inches forward on his belly, reaching for his knife.</p>
<p>“I love you when you’re weak and pathetic,” she says with a gentle smile. “You loved me, once, didn’t you?”</p>
<p>The demon says nothing, watches her step closer and closer.</p>
<p>“I still see you,” Jess says. She reaches out, her fingers barely brushing his cheek. “I see you, Sam.”</p>
<p>The demon melts ever so slightly into her palm, reaches out with his own hand, the same hand which is drenched in the blood of so many, no doubt.</p>
<p>“You died,” the demon says.</p>
<p>“I’m here,” Jess promises. “Right here. Look at me.”</p>
<p>The demon does, black eyes darker than anything Sam has ever seen.</p>
<p>“No, look at me. Let me see your eyes,” Jess insists.</p>
<p>Sam grips the hilt of Ruby’s knife. He counts to three in his head, eases slowly upwards. One, two, three…</p>
<p>Samuel yells as he thrusts the fire-poker through the demon’s back. He cries out as he shoves harder, until the end pierces through the demon’s chest. He doesn’t let go, even as the demon chokes and falls to his knees, as Jessica bursts into tears.</p>
<p>Sam stands up, knife still gripped in his hand, and stares down at the Sam bleeding to death in the middle of the living room. His eyes are hazel, almost green in this dim light, and he spits blood into his palm. The demon was never a demon, after all.</p>
<p>Samuel finally lets go of the fire-poker, his hands are red and trembling. “I had to,” he whispers. “He had Jess. He… He was going to hurt her…”</p>
<p>The third Sam is dying, stuttering thought his last breaths. He grabs Jess’s ankle. “I’m sorry,” he coughs. The cream carpet is turning redder by the second. All that blood, Sam thinks, demon blood finally draining from this monster’s body. A cure, of sorts.</p>
<p>Jess crouches down but she doesn’t touch him, simply watches him die. It takes all of a minute, although it feels far longer.</p>
<p>“I had to,” Samuel says again, this time to Sam.</p>
<p>“I know. It’s okay,” Sam replies, giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder.</p>
<p>Jessica stands up, wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “The kids. I should go check on the kids.”</p>
<p>Samuel waits for her to leave before he starts to cry. Not hysterical, ugly sobs, thank God, but he trembles and shakes as his red eyes water.</p>
<p>“I’ll clear this up,” Sam says finally. He crouches down, begins to roll the stained carpet around the corpse. Disposing of his own body is not exactly a new experience. There’s blood on the wood floor beneath. He’ll have to ask where they keep the mop.</p>
<p>“You mind if I borrow your car?” Sam asks. Samuel blinks at him, glances at the rug-covered corpse and winces.</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah. Sure,” he mumbles.</p>
<p>This poor son of a bitch, Sam thinks. I tried to warn him, more than once, but he’s always been a stubborn ass no matter which universe he comes from. Sam stands up, wipes his bloodied hands on his jeans.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he says. “I never wanted you to get involved in this.”</p>
<p>“This is what your life is like?” Samuel asks. “You do this every day?”</p>
<p>Sam shrugs. “Pretty much.”</p>
<p>Samuel looks at him, face furrowed into the most pitying expression, like Sam’s a puppy that’s just been ditched on the side of the road. “I’m sorry,” he says, “That this is your life.”</p>
<p>There’s no good answer to something like that so Sam remains silent. He drags the body into the kitchen and out of sight as Jess comes back inside with the kids held firmly in both arms. She walks up the stairs without a single glance into the living room.</p>
<p>“I’ll, uh, get rid of this,” Sam says, nudging the rolled rug with his foot.</p>
<p>“I should come,” Samuel insists. “I should… I should see this through.”</p>
<p>Sam sighs. He’s tired of arguing with himself. “You should be with your family.”</p>
<p>Samuel pulls Sam into a hug and, for once, he does as he’s told.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Sam burns the body out by the warehouse. It’s not a hunter’s funeral, just a hole in the ground and a tank of gasoline drenched over the body, a single match tossed inside. He doesn’t watch it burn; doesn’t think he could stand the familiar stink of his own burning flesh. He wanders through the warehouse, listens to his footsteps echo through the hollow building.</p>
<p>The rift is gone, fizzled out of existence.</p>
<p>It’s a nice world here where Jess gets to live out her days and Sam got to graduate and their children got to be born. But, in this life, Dean never made it past his twenties. He never got a second or a third or a fourth chance like Sam’s own brother.</p>
<p>As wonderful as this life might be, it doesn’t belong to Sam. He’s not going back to say goodbye. He doesn’t think he could bear to look at Jess again, this Jess who doesn’t know or love him. He heads back to the grave where the last of the fire is burning out, sparks catch and drift up to the sky, soft embers cling to the last of the body. Sam fills the ground back up and buries a Sam Winchester who will never be mourned.</p>
<p>A soft glow catches his eye and he looks up with a smile. “About time,” he says to the rift. It flickers and pulses in response, brand new and vibrant. He casts a glance over his shoulder. Samuel’s car sits quietly a few yards away with its booster seats in the back, a frisbee and a spare pack of diapers in the trunk rather than silver bullets and rosary beads. He pats down his jacket until he finds the pocket notepad and pencil he always keeps in the inner lining of his jacket, filled with scrawled notes from various recent hunts. He rips free a blank page, scribbles something down and pins it beneath the windscreen wiper.</p>
<p>A couple of days later, once Samuel has tracked down his car to an empty warehouse surrounded by fields, a fresh grave and nothing else, he’ll find a note that says:</p>
<p>
  <em>Sam,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sorry for all the mess. Thanks for the help.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Grow old for me, ok?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>-the other Sam</em>
</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam has lost count of worlds. He suspects this is either the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth. It’s quiet here in the forest. The trees a full with lush green leaves and the flowers are in full bloom. It might be peaceful if it weren’t for the strange symbols carved into the trunks.</p>
<p>This universe has yet to reveal its secrets.</p>
<p>He hikes through the forest, the wind at his back carrying birdsong and whispers. The air is thick with the promise of rain.</p>
<p>“Sammy,” the wind whispers.</p>
<p>Sam stop and listens.</p>
<p>“Sammy!” it calls again, louder this time. Sam turns to the wind. A shape grows steadily nearer; mud-caked boots, a leather jacket gone days without cleaning, soft brown hair spiked in every direction. A deep rumble of a voice and a childishly happy grin.</p>
<p>“Sammy!”</p>
<p>Sam smiles and calls back, “Dean!”</p>
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